


drinking ale from the curved horns

by waldorph



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blanket Permission, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 05:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/744548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waldorph/pseuds/waldorph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ragnar and Athelstan meet again, a decade since Athelstan was stolen from him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	drinking ale from the curved horns

They have him in a lower dungeon. 

King Ælla doesn't trust that he couldn't escape if he could see the sun, which Athelstan can't argue with.

"He is owed rites, if he will have them," Athelstan says. Ælla narrows his eyes. He won't argue, for fear that Athelstan won't speak to God on his behalf, but Athelstan can see he doesn't like it. Ælla is an old man, now, but the victory of finally having the man who plagued him so relentlessly, who emptied his coffers and could stand with ten men against the dozens Ælla sent, seems to have given him strength. 

"You're the priest who was taken in the first raid, were you not?" he asks, though it's not a question. Athelstan was brought here when he recovered enough to be moved from France. Ælla thought he would give some insight, would help Ælla, but Athelstan has, for ten years, said nothing.

"Yes," he agrees. "I am that one."

The guards let him into the floor, but Ragnar is the only prisoner here. Athelstan's feet are loud on the stones, and the smell is enough to--well. His heart pounds in his chest, and when he stands in front of the cell, he can scarcely breathe.

"Priest," Ragnar says, rising from the floor, smiling. His hair is whiter than blond, now, though his eyes aren't dimmed. He looks--remarkably unchanged.

"Ragnar Lothbrok," Athelstan says, and he can't help the answering smile, though he's quick to bite it away, glancing towards the guards. They give no sign they're watching, but still: "I'm here to offer--"

"None of them speak our language," Ragnar interrupts, dismissive and sly. "Our," as though Athelstan has any part of it, can take any ownership of it. "How are you?"

"How am--you're about to die!" 

"Probably," Ragnar shrugs. "He can't win a war, but he builds good prisons." 

"Prob--what are you even--"

"Priest."

It's easy to fall silent at that tone. It was--it's been ten years since he lived in Ragnar's home. Ten years since he helped raise his children, was a slave who never understood why he was kept alive, and then forgot to ask the question at all. It was his home, his family, and it has been ten years of being lonely since.

"They think you all barbarians."

"So do you," Ragnar says, sly. "You should see Bjorn, now. Tall as a mountain."

"And Lagertha?"

Ragnar's mouth works, unhappy. "Odin recalled her two winters after you were taken from us."

Taken from them--such a strange way of putting it. Athelstan had been taken in France. He'd gone with them to France, because Ragnar was convinced that the people there hid their gold underground. He'd been wearing his old robes, though he'd balked at the haircut (he wasn't going to let either of them near his head with a knife. It had been seven years, and he wasn't stupid). 

He doesn't remember much of what happened--it had been a lot of blood, and he can remember the sound of Lagertha's screams, her bloodied hands grasping at his forearms, at his fingers, as he was dragged from her. He has scars, still. He can remember being borne away and watching Ragnar chasing him, shouting for him, and he can remember getting away and running towards him, certain if he could close the gap his captors would give up. He wrenched from their grasps once, twice, before everything went black. 

When he came to, Father Aldar had said he was strong of spirit but that he had been tested beyond the endurance of man, and saw the devil everywhere. That it was expected, after so many years. He had--it had taken a long time to take his eyes off of the shoreline, waiting for a longship to take him home. 

"I'm sure she's in Valhalla," he says, blinking against his grief at the thought of her dead. She would want no tears, and he cannot give her vengeance.

Ragnar nods, and folds his hands carefully over Athelstan's. It hurts--the contact. It's a physical, wrenching pain deep in his chest, burns like seaspray on his skin. He wants to grip him tight, to breathe him in, to run and perhaps die but not have to do this. He cannot be a witness to this.

"Shipwrecked," Ragnar finally says, soft, his thumb stroking over Athelstan's hand: an explanation of how he was caught. "I thought I would--it's better this way. Better to die at the hand of the enemy. Die well and Odin himself might come to bear me back." 

Athelstan has seen a lot of death. He's seen it here, and he saw it there, and he knows that while the Vikings embrace a warrior's death, this is--

"Ælla won't behead you."

"Just as well," Ragnar says with with a grin, stepping back as a guard comes to tell Athelstan his time is up. "No fun in that at all." 

*

A snake pit. Athelstan hears it and has to excuse himself. When his stomach is done wretching, he presses his cold, shaking hand to his face. This is the man who held him as slave. Who forced him to break trust with God over and over.

He should not mourn. This is God's justice, the justice he prayed so fervidly for in those first months--in that first year. He should accept the will of God and pray that Ragnar might find the truth of His word. 

But he does. He mourns, and knows that God has no hand in this, only a petty king with more spite than honor.

It is a spectacle, everyone peering into the pit from varying vantage points. Athelstan stands at the top, looking down. Ragnar is humming to himself, hands bound behind his back. There are new scars on his body--ones Athelstan doesn't know the story of. He wants to know them--wants to know if the big one on his side was a fight or if Floki was drunk. He wants more time, desperately. He wants to know more of Bjorn, if Gyda is married and has children--if she fights still or if she decided her mother's life wasn't hers, after all. Is Bjorn a leader among men or is he still a brat, the potential for greatness squandered?

The snakes rustle when he's thrown in, hissing and arching, the sound audible even as high as Athelstan is. 

Ragnar sings to his gods. It's familiar, at least in tune. The snakes strike out, and Ragnar laughs. He doesn't kick them away, doesn't try to scale a wall. He stands, head thrown back, laughing. Ælla is furious, from where Athelstan can see him, but then Ragnar catches sight of Athelstan, and Athelstan can't close his eyes against tears.

"The days of my life are ended," Ragnar sings, but he's forcing the air from his lungs, and Athelstan can't breath. He feels as though he's been poisoned, too; as though he's drowning. 

Ragnar's breathing is loud, echoing, and everyone is silent. No customary jeering, no laughter or things thrown. Ragnar has that effect still, even on those who hate him.

He smiles at Athelstan even as he falls to his knees, landing hard, a sickening sound. Something is wrenched from Athelstan's throat, a noise too loud, and Ragnar's smile widens a little. "I laugh as I die," he breathes, and then does just that. 

Ragnar's body they toss into the sea, careless, though his head is put on a pike for the birds to pick at. Crows, and Athelstan watches them circle from his window and thinks Odin is laughing, somewhere. 

Bjorn will come. Gyda too, perhaps. The armies of the Vikings will fall upon the land like a terrible sea, and they will avenge this death. The Gods and their own love dictates that they will, and Athelstan will hold open the door for them. He watches the shoreline, more closely than he has the last three years, and a crow sits beside his hand, eyeing him. There is a storm on the horizon, barrelling towards them with a vengeance.

Athelstan puts a hand on his books, quiet. _"He did many other things as well,"_ he murmurs, opening one and dipping his quill into ink. _"If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written."_

**Author's Note:**

> I'm...really sorry. I was going to write porn as my first "real" fic for this fandom, but I wrote this instead? 
> 
> Yeah, I'm really sorry- also the title and the quote from Ragnar in the pit come from Ragnar Lothbrok's [deathsong](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnar_Lodbrok#Death_song)
> 
> The bit that Athelstan quotes at the end is from John 21:25 (h/t to screamlet).
> 
> * * *
> 
>  **Blanket Permission:** go ahead and translate, make podfic, rework the fic, or do whatever other transformative work you can think of. If the work is hosted on another site, drop me a comment or email and I'll put a link in the story notes!
> 
> [twitter:](https://twitter.com/waldorph) for unfiltered me || [tumblr:](http://waldorph.tumblr.com/) less about me, more about the pretty gifsets and art


End file.
